Manliness redux

My almost four year old nephew Hank could teach all you men a thing or two about colour. This unholy living nightmare striking combination
hankyarn
is his choice for “Dragon Mittens”. He is not even a little concerned about the pink. In fact, it is his favourite colour. He grieves that I don’t have enough of the pink to do the mittens entirely in this manliest of colours. These mittens will replace his mouse mittens, one of which met an untimely demise somewhere in between the park and his house. We are concerned about the weather, and the fact that the mouse is lonely and likely, cold. We take some comfort in knowing that the wee mousie is wool…and a mitten, and may therefore be better prepared for his unexpected adventure than a real mouse. (That one was keeping me awake at night, let me tell you). The mouse mittens were knit to replace the dinosaur mittens, which were never worn as they are “very scary mittens”. The mouse mittens were very cool (and Larry..they were grey), and I feel bad that they are gone, but the remaining mousie (aren’t we glad they don’t mate for life) has been reborn as a puppet. I suggested that perhaps I could put a string on the new dragon mittens but this plan was soundly rejected. Not because he is a big boy, not because strings are demeaning and not because the presence of a string speaks to a certain lack of faith in his ability to keep a dragon from meeting the same horrendous fate as the poor mouse, but instead…get this, it is because mitten strings (even on a pair of pink dragon mittens) are not manly. Any other rules you people want to tell me about?